First off, I apologize to my friends and roleplay partners who've been left hanging. Any desire to cancel old threads is completely understandable.

I've been struggling with a serious health issue the past several months. There was a long period where things would seem to improve only to relapse, delaying things further. All that aside, just wanted to let people know I'm around again and to contact me via PM or Trillian - ironsoldier, if anyone wants to get things going again.

Masane approached her locker, and sat down on the bench before working the combination. "Ok.. 1st number... 2nd number, skip it once... 3rd number, and... Ugh, I can never get it on the first try." She grumbled, and started to try again. "All right.. 1st number.. 2nd number... aaaand.. got it!" She exclaimed, pulling the lock loose this time, and opened her locker up.

She stood up once the locker was open, and leaned in to the locker, fishing out a couple of things. She grabbed a pair of red sparring gloves for herself, and fit them on her hands after shutting her locker and locking it tight. She then stood up and walked out to the gym, and walked towards a punching bag, throwing strong punches and kicks into the bag, mixing her attacks up however she could think of.

Outside in the gym, a new arrival was looking around for a place to work out. Kasumi Tsuji, who had just yesterday signed up onto the AFW roster, was already beginning to put her automatic membership at the gym to good use. She wore what she usually wore when working out, a simple white gi from her dojo, bound with a black obi belt. What was curious was that she wore nothing under the gi, since that would just make her feel too hot, but it wasn't like anybody would notice anything. She wasn't exactly stacked, the loose gi hiding everything underneath.

Kasumi saw that the punching bags were not being used, so headed for there. She needed some practice with her actual techniques anyways, it never hurt to practice! So Kasumi picked a punching bag and began going through her forms, starting off with light punches but also mixing in kicks and more powerful techniques in there. She was soon warmed up, and was going through some of the most difficult technique chains she knew. "Hiyahh!" Kasumi let out a loud cry as she finished her last technique with a aerial spinning kick that knocked the punching bag far to the side. She landed, panting from her exertions, sweat beading up all over her body, with a grin on her face from the exhilaration of training.

Masane was busy slamming her fists and feet into the punching bag next to the one Kasumi was attacking. She raised an eyebrow at the karate gi she had on, as she was wearing one herself, white with a black obi, and white martial art pants as well.

She watched her quietly as she started working the punching bag with excellent form, and smiled after the girl landed that last kick.

"Heeyyy, not bad. Not bad at all" She smiled. "Never thought I'd meet someone else here who used karate.."

Kasumi had noticed the other girl beside her, who was also using Karate on the punching bag. She appeared to be very skilled and considerably stronger than Kasumi, since with each blow the punching bag got knocked back quite a bit. Of course, Kasumi didn't bother the girl, since she was a little shy in this new place, and she knew that disrupting someone during training is rather annoying at best. When she finished, she noticed the brown haired girl watching her.

"Thanks," Kasumi said, responding to the compliment, "My name is Kasumi Tsuji, I'm new here." She raised a hand in greeting, expecting Masane to shake it.

Last edited by 265 on Sun Jan 24, 2010 9:24 pm; edited 1 time in total

Masane nodded a little. "Yep! It's worked pretty well here for me too.." She stated. "Hmm... you know, punching bags are nice, but I've always found a live partner to be better for training." She hinted.

Kasumi was glad to find a fellow Karate user, and was elated to hear that everything worked out very well for her here. She had been a little apprehensive in joining the league, since wrestling and karate were very different styles of fighting. Of course, even though she was trained in Karate, she knew all sorts of other martial arts as well. Her father had let her train with all the students in his dojo, so she had been exposed to many different fighting styles. Wrestling, especially pro-style wrestling, wasn't anything anybody at her dojo knew however.

Kasumi got the hint quickly. "So you want to spar with me?" she said, "That's fine, I've wondered how people here fought." She gave Masane a closer look now, finding her several inches taller and with a fuller body than her. Masane was probably much stronger too, though Kasumi felt rather confident in her skill with her techniques.

"So then, we go to the ring?" Kasumi asked, gesturing to the empty wrestling ring.

Masane nods a little. "Yeah..." She agreed, and started heading for the ring herself, rolling under the bottom rope and kipped up to her feet. "So... lets just trade blows with each other until one of us is wanting to quit, ok?" She suggested.

Kasumi pulled on her gi and tightened the black obi around her waist. She slipped the shoes off her feet, fighting barefoot like a martial artist should. "Alright," she said, "We'll do that. Don't hold back Masane, because I'm not going to!" She settled in an offensive stance, right foot behind her left at a right angle, left hand raised with an open palm to parry attacks, right hand clenched into a fist, resting at her hip. She would wait until Masane assumes her fighting stance until moving in and engaging.